Originally Posted by Nancy1999  No, it's a little more complicated than that. Every breed has a standard, an ethical breeder follows standard, and she doesn't pick and choose what parts of standard she personally likes. Say a breeder likes long floppy ears like a Maltese, should that breeder start breeding for that trait? Previous breeders have worked hard to create a standard and get breeding dogs to produce puppies that will resemble the mother and father. As you may know, when you breed two different breeds together, you really can't predict the results at all; it could look totally like one breed, or the other, or a mixture of both! The reason I’m in favor of purebred breeding, is that you can predict what the adult will look like and how it will behave, this is important so that dogs will not “disappoint” their owners and end up in rescue. If we didn’t have an overabundance of dogs that we kill each year, because no one wants them, this wouldn’t be such a problem and people could breed whatever. If you don’t follow standard, where do you stop? Some people want to change standard to have wiry hair, like a Cairn Terrier, some love the droopy ears like a Maltese, some love the black and white, rather than the blue and gold, but it’s the duty of the breed club to protect standard and never change it unless health issues have been a problem due to the written standard. This isn’t true with Yorkies, and in fact, it really isn’t known whether breeding for the white may cause more health problems. Hopefully the breeders who are breeding off color dogs are doing it for the right reasons, and will be responsible, and share their information with others, for example if they produce a puppy that is deaf, they should not only not breed the parents who produced it, but tell everyone who has a dog related to the dogs who produced it. By the way, for some to suggest that we are prejudiced because we believe in every breed having a standard and breeders following that standard, well, that’s is just ridiculous. |